Table of Contents

Business Description
Services
Web Server
Site Architecture
Marketing
Competition
Pricing
Proposed Trends

Business Description

        In a time of economic instability, businesses look to each other to keep their heads above water. goKzoo.com is looking to give the greater Kalamazoo area businesses a helping hand by providing them a web presence at a very affordable price. By offering an extensive set of information for the businesses in the this area, in one common online marketplace and website, goKzoo.com hopes to enrich the Southwest Michigan economy one day at a time.
        The business itself is a simple concept that will build itself into a complex online marketing system. goKzoo.com is an extensive online directory for the Kalamazoo and Southwest Michigan area. Any business within an unspecified radius of Kalamazoo is encouraged to sign up as a goKzoo.com member. They will not only receive an inexpensive web solutions package, but also get a chance to promote their business to a wider market. The site is running on a high-speed server and Internet backbone, making the site available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
        goKzoo.com is to be run as a sole-proprietorship. This way, all emphasis on the business can be put on the customers, and not the owners of the company. The stockholders of the business will be those businesses who are hosted on the website, per se. The business' intention is to first create a mark in the community as the best source of information for the businesses in the area. In time, there are definite hopes of a profitable future.

Services

        Any business that signs up as a goKzoo.com member can expect preferential treatment. There aren't any hidden charges or extra fees for adding to your page on the site or changing the information on it. Businesses that sign up can expect to have all of their information listed on the site including, but not limited to: general company information, hours of operation, location information, maps and directions, pictures of the business, coupons for the business, listings of the nightly and weekly specials, business history, services listing, and anything else that is appropriate for your site's content.
        Another advantage of being a goKzoo.com member is the ease of finding your business on the site. Every business that signs up will have their own free sub domain on the site, making it not only easy to locate, but also very easy to market. A sub domain is simply seen as http://yourbusiness.gokzoo.com once it's published on the site. This will make it easy to market on your flyers and advertisements for your business if you don't have a preexisting website and also make it easy for customers to remember your site's URL.
        By offering coupons to customers of the site, it will not only give a goKzoo.com member extra business, but it will also encourage visitors to the site to try something new, and even further away than normal. By advertising to a larger customer base than just inside of the Kalamazoo area, goKzoo.com will help bring business to the Kalamazoo community by giving a worldwide marketplace to the area.
        Not only is the site rich with information, but also it is very easily navigable. Every page has visual and textual links to every division of the site, and there is also a search engine designed specifically for the site. At any point on the site, a visitor has direct access to every other part of the site at only a click or two away. To design the site in such a way was done by extensively researching proper web design methods of many nationally known scholars, including Nielsen and Flanders. By making the site easy to use and easy to navigate, visitors to the site will come back more often and find the site much more useful.
        What sets goKzoo.com apart from other businesses like it in the area is the price and quality of information being displayed on the site. By charging one flat rate of $25 per month, or $300 per year, there is no confusion of what to expect from us. There are no hidden charges or no extra fees for changes or additions. Not only is the price the cheapest in the area, but the informational coverage is also the greatest. Anything that a customer of your business should know about you before they step foot in the door could be displayed on the site. By offering both the cheapest and most effective online directory in the Southwest Michigan area, we feel we can claim it is also the best; the best for you as a goKzoo.com member and the best for the visitors to the site.

An extensive analysis of web design theories and how these methods apply to goKzoo.com can be found here.

Web Server

         For a good website, there is much more than just a good design and extensive content. On top of that, the site must also be running on a good web server, and for this, we chose to host our site with PowWeb Hosting Solutions at www.powweb.com. The servers are hosted on a backbone with an OC12/48 connection and a 24/7/365 network monitoring system. The servers are run with 1.4 gigahertz dual PIII processors, 2 gigabytes of SDRAM, and SCSI RAID hard drives all on a redundant power backup with a 24/7 monitor and system backup.
         The files stored on the web server are not only backed up daily on another server, but the entire goKzoo.com site is also backed up daily on a server in Kalamazoo. This way in case either server crashes, there is always a backup readily available to ensure minimal downtime for the site and never a loss of information.

Site Architecture

goKzoo.com Site Architecture

Marketing

         Target Market
         The target market for goKzoo.com has two levels. The target audience for clientele for the site is any business within an unspecified radius of Kalamazoo looking for an inexpensive web solutions package to help promote the business. The target viewing audience for the site is limitless. The biggest advantage of being an Internet-based business is that the business is open every hour of the day and every day of the year. Anyone that lives in the Kalamazoo area or has plans to travel to the area will find the obvious advantages of using the goKzoo.com site.
         Kalamazoo Economy and Market Share
         The Kalamazoo area economy is presently on the rise with new projects and endeavors being started often. The downtown Kalamazoo area is going through a facelift and the Portage area is creating new jobs by the thousands every year. Businesses without web presence are losing a large share of business that they could have with minimal web advertising. Now is the perfect time for them to sign up for goKzoo.com, as the Kalamazoo economy is on a rise.
         goKzoo.com Marketing Plan
         Once businesses sign up on the site, the marketing approach that will be used will become the most important part of the business. The approach that will be used for goKzoo.com's marketing plan is a multilevel process. By multilevel process, we mean that we will be using multiple marketing schemes over many different medias.
         On the web level, we have submitted the site to dozens of search engines. By including certain search criteria in all of the webpages on goKzoo.com, any search regarding the Kalamazoo area and its businesses will have goKzoo.com in the search results, making it distinguishable on the web.
         On a personal level, this site will be spread mainly by word of mouth. As with any well-run business, word of mouth referrals are the biggest and best way of attracting customers and visitors to the business. To start attracting the initial visitors to the site, there will be an extensive distribution of flyers and handouts for the site. Being that Kalamazoo is home to four colleges, starting with the college students will be the initial targeted audience for handouts. By providing a site full of information and money saving opportunities, goKzoo.com will be a site visited often by college students.
         Other marketing and advertising opportunities will arise and we will take advantage of those as we see fit. Being a business that is run on a low budget, we look to take avenues that will reach a large amount of viewers without a large price tag attached.

Competition

         As with anything in life, competition is something that goKzoo.com will have to deal with. However, in an area as large as Kalamazoo, competition is going to be a healthy situation to deal with, for both parties. With competition, it will ensure that more businesses in the area can increase their market, and thusly increase the economy. Competition will also ensure that prices stay low and the coverage stays high. After all, an online directory of Kalamazoo is done to help the businesses in the area. We look forward to the competition in the Kalamazoo area, and welcome the newcomers in years to come. By offering the best of both inexpensive web solutions and extensive business coverage for all of our members, we are proud to say that we will be the best.

Pricing

         The pricing plan for goKzoo.com members is simple. To begin with, there is no startup cost for a business to become a goKzoo.com member. Once a business signs up, one flat rate of $100 per quarter or $300 per year will be the charge to be hosted on the site. There are no extra charges to change information or add content to the site. Coupons can be updated very easily as well with the changing specials. Members won't have direct access to editing their portions of the site, but all emails with content change requests will be answered and completed in a timely manner.
         Prices are subject to change on a yearly basis, but the pricing changes will not be made without prior notice to every goKzoo.com member. We want to keep the prices inexpensive to attract the largest amount of businesses that we can, and to help those businesses with their marketing plans, not hurt their financial plan.

For further information on the pricing policy, please visit the pricing page here.

Proposed Trends

         Proposed Web Trends
         After looking at other websites in the other areas with similar markets as goKzoo.com, we have developed some proposed web statistics. After almost a year of cycling the site through search engines, goKzoo.com receives approximately 300 page views per day before any advertising or content. This was done by submitting the site to search engines to start spreading the name. After signing up a set number of members for the site, we will complete our first wave of marketing. Between the newly signed businesses and the marketing techniques used, we hope to increase that number to 1,000 page views per day. By gradually increasing our level of members and proportionally adding our marketing plan to the mix, we hope to get our page views per day at around 3,000, or roughly 100,000 page views per month.
         Proposed Profit Increase
         At 100,000 page views per month, we feel that any business that is a part of goKzoo.com will see an increase in profit in their business. By featuring a site that sells to one part of the Kalamazoo market side by side with a business that sells to something completely different, we hope to increase the overall economy in the area, not just for each business. For example, a person looking for a restaurant with a good steak may come across a window supplier offering a great special on new windows. By sharing a marketplace that offers something for everyone and increases the economy of the area, each business can expect to increase their profit as well.